From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates
It would be easy to hide.
He’d always thought that – to become consumed by shadow and darkness, to unfurl into pieces, into shells, into minute, fringes of frayed strands. For a time in Helovia, he’d been devoured by the unrelenting contortions of darkness, and he’d been comfortable there in his desolation, in his indifference, in his apathy, striking out with savage intuition, drowning the wakes, the borders, in his chaotic abyss.
But here it was different and there’d been no way out of living and loving and cherishing – and he’d tried. They’d found him, time after time, and he’d let them all in –
And they kept leaving, dying, breaking.
Alongside the Oasis, because it was a favored haunt, because there was something calming in the stretch of water, because maybe no one would bother to look for him here, he sat along a massive rock and bowed his head. To nothing, no one, save for exhaustion, fatigue, and sorrow, building up through his shoulders and working its way down his back, coiling in the nestle of his spine, in the roots of his hands. The Sword didn’t even bother to look down at the clutches of his knuckles, the forming of magic in between his palms.
He just wanted to escape. To have one moment where he could breathe and everything wasn’t falling apart.
Cloth pooled in his hands, and he thought nothing of it, piercing eyes roaming further across the void, along the abyss, drowning on dry land, swallowed down by the wake of his anguish.
--
Deimos has made:
Invisibility Cloak: Ornate, detailed cloak, that when worn, renders the wearer invisible.
The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead The rising of the horns, ahead
"Help, for Gods sake, someone bloody 'elp me!" Came the cry from the trees, shortly followed by a crash as Willie fell into a bush along the shore of the Oasis, the branches snapping beneath him but not cushioning the fall, a loud thud marking where he fell into the ground. He stayed on the ground, half-in the sharp broken brush, one hand around his middle where blood seeped through fingers desperately clutching it in.
Looking up desperately, wild-eyed, Willie tried to see if there was anyone at the Oasis that could help him: his strength was fading fast and he could feel fuzzy, sleepy edges creeping into his mind, panic the only thing keeping him determinedly awake. Seeing what he thought was a figure at the edge of the Oasis he held out a hand towards it. "You! Help!"
The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates
Screams and outcries poured and rippled, the peace lost – his head raising upwards like a predator’s, instant instincts, savagery, and demeanor honed - sharpened gaze catching at another figure along the outskirts. Lured from his rock, he tucked the makeshift cloth into a pocket, not bothering to investigate it now, swift maneuvers bringing him closer and closer to the individual stretching out a hand. Had it been some sort of trap, the Sword would’ve been long caught, snared, entangled with the tethers, a silent call for Zuriel, who’d been lingering nearby, piercing through his mind, instead of why this was occurring.
He crouched and kneeled by the unfamiliar figure, not taking the man’s palm, but studying, perusing, trying to piece together the bizarre exchange – eyes taking in the blood soaking through the man’s fingers, wishing the unicorn would be swift; he wasn’t capable of doing much else in the healing process. “Hang on,” he rumbled, swallowing down bile, notions of another, of so many others, in the same damned throngs beating echoes and drums into his brain. Perhaps while the mare was making her way there, he could keep the man busy, distracted, deterred. “What happened?”
The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead The rising of the horns, ahead
The figure, thank the Gods, got up and came towards him; a young lad that Willie actually felt he recognised: someone to do with the bakery girl, if he remembered correctly. He didn't know much about him, but he looked like an honourable sort: hopefully he would live up to the appearance. As he got closer, Willie opened his mouth to greet him but instead found it filling with a hot, stinging bile and he coughed, phlegm and blood hitting the ground.
Taking a desperate, choking breath, he forced himself to speak through the pain. "I were...I were at the farm, just doing some work...n' I saw this great big rabbit. Real fat thing." Even with the pain and discomfort, Willie still gesticulated with his hands, old habits dying hard, palms extending out to convey the girth of the rabbit. "Didn' want it eatin' my corn, so I ran after it with my sling."
He rubbed at his eye with his spare hand, calloused knuckles covered in dirt and blood smearing across his face. "...Then I...I guess I lost sight of it a couple times." Coughing, more blood dribbling out over his lips, he shook his head. "Kept seein' it again...then it lead me into th' storm. Those big 'uns that have been showin' up more lately...y'know what I mean?"
The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates
The sight of more blood, likely riveting deep from the man’s lungs, seethed and rippled in his bones. Hurry up he somehow begged, pleaded, and commanded through the companion bond, feeling like the mare was merely inching her way along, the seconds too precious, too few. Too many battlefield wounds marked upon comrades, too many memories of freshly-dug graves, centered on his mind – and he only veered away from them, crouched before this lacerated, battered man, as he told his story.
Rabbits – fat rabbits luring, eyes following the width of the farmer’s hands. Understandable, despite Deimos having almost no notion of the occupation, that the man wouldn’t want the rodent to destroy his crops. That it was some sort of siren fixture made the Sword’s eyes narrow, perplexed, confused. He knew about the storms, but had never been involved with them. That had been one of Amalia’s many adventures. “Yes.” A nod of understanding on their existence, on the treacherous wakes potentially clenching and furling. “So how did you come to be like this?”
Then, finally, the unicorn manifested herself through the haze, crouching down to her knees beside the man – a noble, gentle stare rendered for him. She’d deal with the General’s impatience later. “This is Zuriel. She can heal you.” In case the man was spooked of another animal’s appearance, staying where he was, permitting the creature to do her work.
The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead The rising of the horns, ahead
At least it seemed like he was making enough sense for Deimos to follow, even as his mind began to feel like it was clouding over with an odd numbness, unlike anything he'd felt before: not quite pain, but somewhere close.
"Uh..." Willie frowned as he tried to remember, the details of the story beginning to float away along with his blood into the soil. "So I heads into this storm n' it was so weird - it seemed like it was lettin' me through, like the weather was parting for me to go past it. I didn' think too much of it at the time though, cos I was looking for that damn rabbit." He shook his head, wondering now what the fuck he'd been doing.
A unicorn approached - these damn Outlanders, always going out and getting the fanciest of everything - and he let her come close, knowing their healing abilities. At first, her magic felt soothing, taking away the top layer of pain from his experience, making his breath slightly less laboured: but then, as if rebelling against the very idea of being healed, he groaned as another wave of blood gushed out through his fingers. Sensing his time might be short, he kept going, wanting Deimos to be able to tell this story to those who would want to know what happened to him. "...Then...it was hard to see in the storm, but I coulda sworn I saw a damn dragon ahead...weren' long after that that..." He nodded down to the gash in his side.
The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates
Storms permitting people to walk through? A trick? A deception? Weather snagging and snaring? Or was it something else altogether? He swallowed down the rancorous notions of a damn dragon (how many more were doomed to be found?), eyes focused on Zuriel for a moment. The unicorn’s eyes had narrowed, and a subtle shake of her head followed, indicating that her healing notions weren’t quite up to par – that no matter the amount of incantations she was putting in, eventually it wouldn’t matter.
Another sigh shifted through his lungs; he was so tired of simply losing, of everyone around this damned hellhole losing and dying and falling to pieces. His jaw clenched, muscles feathering tightly. “Did the dragon do this to you?” Was it another threat this world faced? Like the white ones in Halo? Or something else lurking in the void? “Can you remember what the rest of the land looked like?” In case they managed to fumble their way there, amidst these entangled elements?
There wasn’t much else he could do or say, not a creature rendered in comfort. He sat down beside the man instead of kneeling or crouching now though, striving for some sort of solidarity, solid, tangible, motions he’d encountered and exuded beside fallen, broken comrades, while Zuriel attempted to keep him comfortable through the worsening onslaught.
The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead The rising of the horns, ahead
For a moment after the question Willie just stared at Deimos, clearly beginning to lose track of his mind; he managed to gather back enough consciousness to answer, but the words were thick with blood in his mouth, unclear: "It were...a lil dragon, like the ones that make friends w'Accepted kids. I thought maybe it were someone's companion lost, so I went towards it..then...it bit me, but.."
He shook his head, eyes looking wild as he stared up at Deimos, desperately searching for understanding. "Not just teeth. There's somethin' in my veins, it put in there--" Willie coughed and again, thick and discoloured phlegm fell to the ground; he groaned. "...Didn't see the land. Just the storm. It...it's everywhere."
These words seemed to take the last of his significant strength and he fell hard down to fully lay on the ground, no longer able to lean up. Staring up at the sky, blood gargling in his throat, he croaked out to Deimos: "..Ca..can you tell Pat, that's my missus, at the Dewdrop farm...tell her and the kids what happened...and that I love 'em. Please, lad." With that, he breathed a few last, ragged times and then with a final jerk, laid still.
The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates
A little dragon, not the layers of beasts lodged in Halo caves, and he could nearly sigh in relief at that. Another lure then, in a way, used to the tinier ones people had for companions, led astray, down into ruin and something unclear – and the General swallowed down another round of bile, another sweeping stretch of his lungs longing to exude something other than cold, stark terror. Nothing about the land, nothing about the storms, but a nuance, a notion, of more than teeth, of pulsing voids placed into veins.
A poison, maybe?
But he couldn’t ask him anymore; the man, this stranger only chasing after fat rabbits, rendered lost because the world was unjust and cruel. Zuriel laid her head on the farmer’s shoulder, and Deimos nodded, head hanging a little lower as he agreed. “Yes. I can.” The only things left to proffer were reassurance and another’s solid existence at his side, listening to the ragged breaths, the telltale echoes he’d heard through soldier’s last moments time and time before – and then the end. Pat at Dewdrop Farm. Kids. Loved. Lost their father because there was never enough time for innocence or justice.
He rose from the blood-soaked earth, and the unicorn followed suit, creating a shovel in his hand to grant the man a proper burial, and a little marker affixed upon the top. Someone else just gone.
Then they left, to tell Pat and their children, and to decide what to do about the latest information, threat to their world.
The rhythm of the falls, the number of dead The rising of the horns, ahead
